This photo appeared in the News, Volume 12, Number 7, May 12 to 26, 1986. The text was: "Amalgamation's: Challenge to the Future Professor Don George attended his final graduation as Vice-Chancellor and delivered a personal criticism of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission for its keenness for amalgamation. "I regret that this has to be the main matter I raise in my report, when there are so many positive things happening in the University which it would be much more pleasant to comment upon." However, Professor George said, he was so convinced that this was the most important challenge to the future of the University and Newcastle CAE that the community, and the graduates who had worked so hard to achieve their success, must be alerted to the hazard, and invited once again to exert the political pressure which was the only defence against Canberra bureaucrats "in their splendid planning isolation." Professor George spoke to the new graduates about the falling enrolments of the late 1970s and early 1980s. "It was in the dark days of uncertainty about the future that amalgamation was born. Amalgamation lacked any educational rationale, but was claimed to offer theoretical financial savings. "The Struggle against enforced amalgamation sapped and diverted the energies of the University and the College for almost two years, until the election of the first Hawke government in Canberra in 1983 removed the threat. The return to growth in both institutions, and increasing evidence of cooperation, led us to believe that the matter had been placed to rest. "Imagine, therefore our dismay when in September last year, the CTEC made the remarkable statement: The Commission remains unconvinced that the separate operation of both a university and a CAE in two regional cities (Newcastle and Armidale) can be justified on either educational or economic grounds." "To assist us in "right thinking,' the Commission recommended that the institutions prepare coordinated submissions for 1988-90 Triennium (no problem' but, in addition, that the Commonwealth grants for the 1988-90 Triennium be made available in the form of a single lump sum for higher education over which, presumably, the institutions could fight themselves to death. "So much for the bureaucratic minds in Canberra, frustrated in their earlier attempts to force on this city a second class educational status, damaging to both the University and the College, biding their time and dreaming up the ultimate blunt weapon to achieve their end. The Minister Senator Susan Ryan, with great wisdom, has declined to accept the second recommendation, but indicated it will be further considered when the Government has evaluated the effectiveness of joint planning for the 1988-90 Triennium. "Joint planning" the Vice-Chancellor said, makes eminent sense to avoid any duplication or wastage of resources, but how much cooperation between the institutions will be seen by CTEC as enough cooperation to rid them of their fixation about amalgamation?" This image was scanned from a photograph in the University's historical photographic collection held by Special Collections.

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